Doctor Who
It’s Bigger on the Inside
I’ve been a Doctor Who fan for longer than I care to calculate, and once I finally had a house with enough room to display things, the collecting began. Funko Pops turned into books, comics, models, 3D prints and assorted bits of Whovian history. This page is the jumping-off point for all of it.
Doctor Who TV Funko Pops
This is the big one: my complete collection of Doctor Who television Funko Pops. Rather than trying to cram the entire collection onto this page, it has its own dedicated section where you can browse the collection.
View the Complete Collection →Doctor Who Comics
There are enough Doctor Who comics around here to make documenting them properly a project all by itself. This section will eventually catalog the collection, but it is going to take some time to do it right.
Coming SoonDoctor Who Books
Novels, reference books, guides and assorted printed journeys through time and space have accumulated over the years. Like the comics, cataloging all of them is going to be a sizeable undertaking.
Coming SoonDoctor Who Models
TARDISes, Daleks, characters and whatever other pieces of the Whoniverse have found their way onto the shelves. This section may actually appear before the mountains of books and comics get cataloged.
Coming SoonDoctor Who 3D Models
This is where collecting and making things collide. Doctor Who models and props created with 3D printing will eventually live here, including the projects, finished pieces and probably a few experiments along the way.
Coming SoonA Little Timey-Wimey History
You don’t get more than sixty years of television, books, comics, toys and assorted strange objects without accumulating a little history. For anyone who wandered into the collection without already knowing their Hartnell from their Tennant, here’s the very short version.
From a Junkyard in 1963…
Doctor Who first appeared on British television on November 23, 1963, beginning with An Unearthly Child. William Hartnell played the mysterious First Doctor, traveling through time and space in the TARDIS with his granddaughter Susan and her schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. What looked from the outside like an ordinary London police box turned out to be considerably larger on the inside, and one of television’s longest adventures had begun.
The basic idea proved remarkably flexible. The Doctor could travel almost anywhere, allowing the program to move from historical adventures to distant planets, alien invasions, mysteries and monsters from one story to the next. The introduction of regeneration eventually allowed the Doctor to change appearance and personality while remaining the same character, giving new actors the opportunity to take over the role without ending the story.
The original television run continued through 1989. Doctor Who returned for a television movie in 1996 with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, and then came roaring back as a regular series in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. That revival introduced an entirely new generation to the TARDIS while continuing the same enormous story that began in a London junkyard decades earlier.
Along the way, Doctor Who grew far beyond television. Novels, annuals, comic books, audio dramas, magazines, action figures, models, games, Funko Pops, replicas, clothing and enough different versions of the Sonic Screwdriver to fill an equipment drawer have turned the Whoniverse into a collecting hobby almost as large as the television series itself. That is where this particular corner of Idle Hands Workshop comes in.
Where to Hunt for Doctor Who Collectibles
Half the fun of collecting is never knowing where the next piece will turn up. New merchandise is fairly easy to find, but discontinued figures, older books, unusual promotional items and forgotten pieces of Doctor Who history often require a little more hunting.
Official Doctor Who Shop
The obvious place to start for new officially licensed merchandise. The current shop carries Doctor Who clothing, accessories, homeware and selected collectibles, with additional licensed products available through BBC Studios partners.
Specialist Collectible Shops
Retailers such as Forbidden Planet are particularly useful for figures, role-play items, comics, books, statues and preorders. Specialist science-fiction and comic shops are also good places to discover releases you may never see in an ordinary store.
eBay & Online Marketplaces
Once something has been discontinued, the secondary market becomes essential. eBay is one of the largest sources for older Doctor Who merchandise, while Facebook Marketplace and similar sites can occasionally produce excellent local finds without the shipping costs.
Comic & Collectible Shops
Never underestimate the local comic shop. Older inventory sometimes survives on shelves long after an item disappears online, and used collectible stores may have loose figures, books, comics and oddball merchandise that somebody traded in years later.
Conventions & Toy Shows
Comic conventions, science-fiction conventions and regional toy shows are excellent hunting grounds because dozens of dealers are gathered in one place. They are particularly useful when you want to inspect the condition of an older collectible before handing over the money.
Flea Markets, Estate Sales & Thrift Shops
This is the unpredictable category, which naturally makes it one of my favorites. Doctor Who merchandise has been around for decades, so books, toys, VHS tapes, DVDs, figures and strange bits of memorabilia occasionally turn up in places where nobody seems to know—or care— what they are.
Books, Comics & Audio
Doctor Who has an enormous life outside television. Used bookstores and comic shops can be excellent sources for older print material, while publishers and specialist retailers continue producing new adventures, including the extensive range of licensed audio dramas from Big Finish.
The Collector Community
Collector groups, forums and fan communities are useful not only for buying and trading but also for figuring out exactly what you have found. With decades of releases, regional variations and limited editions, another collector may recognize something that would otherwise remain a mystery.